ABSTRACT
When literacy was introduced in the North some of the premises of preservation and transmission of the narrative culture changed. Latin literacy was introduced to Iceland along with Christianity and its early uses were closely connected to the establishment of church institutions. Latin was soon to be followed by an alphabet in the vernacular. Karl G. Johansson has argued that Icelandic culture saw a development from ‘institutional literacy’ to ‘lay literacy’: whereas ‘institutional literacy’ was connected to Latin script used within church institutions, ‘lay literacy’ was connected to vernacular script and secular environments. The sagas reveal awareness of both written and oral culture. Jurg Glauser has shown that authors developed a vocabulary that shows an increased understanding of literature as a written composition. The codification of Icelandic laws demonstrates how alphabetic literacy caused critical review on an aspect of tradition that was deeply ingrained in Icelandic society, and which correspondingly preoccupies much of the Islendingasogur.
